The Passage of Time
by whitereflections12
Summary: Short oneshot, just some Will angst set after AWE in his first seven years as Captain of the Dutchman.  I had the worst time coming up with a title for this one I ever have. o.0  I'm still not really happy with that title...


Just some Will as Captain angst…Because 7 years is a loooong time and doubt preys on the mind like lynx and snowshoe hare.

Because of my damn stupid computer I had to retype the end of this…It was better the first time. I guess that's what I get for not saving often enough. ::SIGH::

Don't own Pirates.(though I wish I could say I owned AWE….Dec.4?!?! but it's gone from theaters??? Cruel and unusual…what am I gonna do without my fix?)

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There were times he thought he could see her in the water. He knew it was just loneliness. Loneliness, and maybe more than a little fear. He pulled many from the water. He never wanted to her to be one of them. The knowledge that someday she might be… That was more than enough to keep him paying good attention.

Every flash of blonde hair brought his vision into sharp focus, but it was never her. The truth that he was ashamed in lie in the disappointment he would feel then. Oh, he would be relieved. Certainly. But deeper down, where he missed her so much he could hardly bear it…There, he would be disappointed.

If he pulled her from the water, she could chose to stay with him. Join his crew. Live beside him for all eternity. The thought was tantalizing, heady in the way something forbidden always was. He would allow himself the fantasy only as long as he felt he could. Then, he forced it to an end. If she was with him, she was dead. Dead. And she deserved so much more out of life than that, he wanted so much more for her than that.

Death was for the old or the sick, or those that died bravely in war(he knew, she could have been one of those). Death was not for her, not yet. She had so many years left, to live, to make a life for herself.

To find someone else, and leave him like Davy Jones, forever heartbroken and forever roaming the seas. He told himself, always, that she was better than that. That she loved him. That she would never betray him.

In his dreams, those facts were overwhelmed by images he had tried to forget of her pressed against Jack, her hand holding his. Those morphed into other things, things that had never happened but that he knew, based on the looks Jack had given her, at least one of them had wanted. Maybe Elizabeth had wanted him, while Will was gone. Maybe she would be attracted to him again now. Maybe she already was and was sailing the seas as HIS wife(or at least his mistress), Jack's child in her arms.

He always woke with a start, his eyes snapping open against everything he wanted never to see again. It was crazy. She loved him. He knew she loved him. Still, four years was a very long time. Three more yet to come…And the days crawled by.

His father had sympathy for him, he knew, and they had forged a bond and a love he had wanted as a child and would always be grateful for. Even so, this chance at his relationship with his father would have been nothing next to having a life with Elizabeth if only he had been given the choice. He had never had any choice.

He knew that Jack had saved his life, knew it and was grateful. If everything worked out with Elizabeth. This first seven years would tell, he was certain, how his life was going to go. If she was waiting for him…The fears would subside. If not…He would spend the rest of his life in despair, in roaming the seas. But he wasn't certain, not yet, and until then, he had to hold onto to the things he knew. She loved him, as he loved her. She was waiting for him. She held his heart, in every possible way.

Two years, eleven months, three weeks, 2 days, 6 hours.

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Poor Will. :(

I will, eventually, write a Will/Elizabeth post AWE story I have the beginnings of…but I'm too busy right now with other things. It will happen though. Eventually.


End file.
